McCain, Obama crisscross U.S. in last lap

CAMPAIGN COUNTDOWN - Campaign notebook

November 2, 2008

Warmed by the cheers of thousands, John McCain and Barack Obama plunged through the final weekend of their marathon race for the White House, the Republican digging for an upset while his confident-sounding rival told supporters, "We can change this country." "Yes we can," Obama said, his slogan across 21 months of campaigning. Both candidates were backed by legions of surrogate campaigners, door-to-door canvassers and volunteers at phone banks scattered across the country as they made their final rounds Saturday in a race that carried a price tag estimated at $2 billion. McCain spent much of the day in Virginia, trying to make up ground in a state that has not voted Democratic since 1964 but leans that way now. "We're a few points down, but we're coming back," he said. "I'm not afraid of the fight, I'm ready for it, and you're going to fight with me." Obama was in Nevada, then Colorado and Missouri, all states that voted for President Bush four years ago. Obama's visit to Colorado marked his sixth trip to the swing state since he clinched his party's nomination in June.

Couple jet from India to New York to vote

An American couple have made a journey of 9,300 miles from India just to vote in the U.S. presidential election. Susan Scott-Ker and her husband have been working in India since the summer. They applied for absentee ballots, but when they hadn't arrived as of last week, they quickly made alternative plans, The New York Times reported. The couple bought airline tickets and four days later flew from Bangalore to New Delhi to Chicago and then on to New York. Scott-Ker says she thought it was "important to stand up and be counted." She and her husband became U.S. citizens a year ago. She is from New Zealand. Her husband was born in Morocco. In all, they expect to spend about $5,000 on the trip.